The Mood Menace

The clock radio in the softly shadowed bedroom clicked on at 7:30 sharp, and the sleepers in the twin beds stirred slightly to the slushy beat of Mantovani and Softly as in a Morning Sunrise. The husband got up first to put on the coffee and slip a record on the hifi. As his wife relaxed for a few minutes more, planning her day, she could just hear the treacly organ notes of Music for Meditation dripping from the living-room Bozak.

It was a Monday, she meditated, and she had two hampers of dirty clothes to cope with. After her husband left for the 8:34, she put on Music for Washing and Ironing, and the suave purring of the Somerset Strings, boosted real high, drowned out the snarl of the washer. When it was time for a midday snack, she returned to the built-in record cabinet and selected Music for Gracious Living and Music for Expectant Mothers (her second child was on the way). Late in the afternoon it clouded over, and she barely had time to slip on Music for a Rainy Night before her husband came home.

Over cocktails (Music, Martinis and Memories) he told her about the account he had lost that morning. Listening to him, she walked quietly to the phonograph and put Music for Courage and Confidence on the turntable. But for long hours after dinner (Music for the Continental Host) he paced the floor while the loudspeaker softly sighed out Music for People Who Can't Sleep.

This phonomaniac family is becoming more or less typical of uncounted U.S. households. Mood music--most of it consisting simply of old favorites and not-so-favorites warmed over--currently accounts for roughly a third of several major companies' album sales. Such old grads of the whipped-cream-and-syrup school as Andre Kostelanetz, Paul Weston, Phil Spitalny and George Melachrino did some pioneering as early as the '40s, were later joined by a host of others. TV's Jackie Gleason became such an adept mood picker that his Music for Lovers Only sold half a million copies. For the hi-fi convert whose interest was less in music than in matching his neighbors' woofers and tweeters, the gaudily packaged mood music was ideal: it filled the yawning silence, but was so innocuous that nobody had to listen to it.

The mood merchants have concentrated on romance (Music for Tired Lovers, Music to Change Her Mind), but dining (Candlelight and Wine) and travel music is also catching on fast (Echoes of Spain, Music for the Nostalgic Traveler). So are such special items as Music for Baby Sitters and Music to Break a Lease. There are mood albums, the record companies boast, for every member of the family and for almost every household activity. Still, the possibilities remain vast. Not yet in the catalogue: Music for Boozing and Music to Soothe Your Hangover, Music to Shave By (so far, the bathroom has scarcely been tapped), Music for the Analyst's Couch, Music to Beat Your Wife By and Music to Spoil Your Taste for Music.

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